Nothing worse than a diesel pulling up to a platform suffocating you!
Noisy and also an unhelpful contribution to our emissions.
Electrification is looking like it's picking up again.
cleaner, greener and quieter not to mention lighter,so it reduces track wear and tear too.
There is a cost to electrifying lines, large front loaded costs usually attempting to modernise a victorian railway which is obviously challenging.
The challange is also access to the railway, a small corridor and poor times that limit production.
The industry is working together to enable more efficient solutions to avoid large civil interventions and reduce costs of electrifying withing existing railway with great results.
Surge arrestors are now allocatable along with insualted paint to reduce clearance down to 70mm.
You are correct in terms of bird strikes being an issue but the electrical clearances that have been worked to for years are in place for lighting strikes and not traction or bird strikes. This is the primary (or secondary to gauge) issue with infrastructure and a huge financial stumbling block, as well as disruptive when interventions are required sometimes taking years to complete.
These are looked at as infill at the moment with Pantographs for traction so Bi Mode.
A couple of issues with them is Range and method of charging if no electrification or EMU equipment.
This then leads into weight, between battery tech and the traction equipment these units are much heavier as you can imagine.
The most important factor is probably reliability, NR or TOCs and FOCs can't afford disruption with an already shakey reputation and coming off the back of the pandemic in bad shape and these units are not as reliable to date, will change with time I would imagine.
My finest heritage trip was behind a Class 55 Deltic Royal Highland Fusilier to Edinburgh and back down the ECML at nearly 100mph. Far better than any steam hauled trip.
The Deltic was a great engine, but a two stroke today is very dirty in today’s terms and so could not be used on the future and the whole point of this discussion is to look forward. I think there are some ex-British destroyers sold to the third world with deltic engines that may be still running?
“The UK Government has announced that diesel-only trains will be phased out by 2040. Currently, 29% of the UK’s fleet is diesel and the move has been received positively by campaigners. But what does the phase-out involve? ”
I suspect there will be a few bridges to be raised for electrics then, or trains that can accept a supply from a gapped line without hiccuping.
Mind you
“42% of the UK’s network is currently electrified, putting it behind the Netherlands (76%), Italy (71%) and Spain (61%). ”
Other sources suggest that France and Germany are both around the 50% mark
I am not sure how the previous comment aligns with the Govt decision to use diesel trains on the new East - West rail line form Oxford to Cambridge. The line is not even restored yet, and diesel has been decided for the new rolling stock!
Most people seem to prefer electric trains. It will be expensive to convert to electric after the line has opened!
